Dead Alive (Brain-Dead) (1992)

Be forewarned, this is grade-B all the way, so if you are a no-fun fuddy-duddy like my mom or need an Oscar pedigree for every film, you watch, you will probably find this equal parts tedious and repellent. However, for those with a subversive wit and tolerance for bad taste and a ridiculous amount of blood and gore, look no further. This is your movie.

Lionel (Timothy Balme) is just your ordinary Bates-ish momma's boy who is astonished when cute Hispanic shopkeeper Paquita (Diana Peñalver) takes an interest in him. Now this is the 1950's, so whites and minorities were not the best of friends, but Lionel is about to face a lot more than close-mindedness when his domineering mother Vera (Elizabeth Moody) gets herself bitten by a mysterious Sumatran rat-monkey and becomes a flesh-eating zombie.

District 9 (2009)

I wasn't a fan of this film when it first came out, but I must admit after three or four viewings I have quite grown to like it. It's an action movie, and for all intents and purposes an intelligent one, but don't expect a ton of depth in terms of character development or symbolism.

   The plot is pretty simple- a colony of about 1.5 million bug-like aliens have their ship break down on them above Johannesburg. After several months of the ship just, well, hovering there, a team of people get inside the ship and find that the aliens are agitated, starving, and living in their own filth.

   The "colonization" of the aliens goes pretty much exactly the way I thought it would in reality -- no laser beams, no probing, just good ol'-fashioned oppression and humans sticking their noses where they don't belong. The people build a ghetto for the aliens to live in squalor and fear, and tensions rise.